Chapter Three #4
‘Trouble was, he never invited her again. Even once she could afford the fare herself, he fobbed her off.’ Leo frowned.
‘Maryam said Teddy was selfish and irresponsible, so what could Isabella expect? Isabella held that against her mum and was too young to exercise judgement about her dad, I suppose. Anyway,’ he sipped his drink absently, ‘contact continued by email or phone and when Teddy told Isabella he was returning to the UK, she was ecstatic.’ His lips twisted wryly.
‘I didn’t mind being sidelined at first. It was huge for her.
She hadn’t seen her dad for more than twenty years.
Then it turned out Teddy had money to invest. If he became a sleeping partner, it would free us from an onerous mortgage on the Black Falcon.
Like a fool, I didn’t take Maryam’s opinion of Teddy as due warning. ’
‘And you got shoved out?’ Jade began to feel sorry for him.
‘Yep.’ He sipped whisky again. ‘I was outvoted. Ganged up on. It was painful, perhaps because I was so powerless.’ He slanted a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. ‘That’s why I’m here to take a breath before I start looking for another business.’
‘In hospitality?’ Whether it was the whisky or talking about something other than losing Gran and gaining two sisters, Jade was interested. She sipped again, feeling the burn in her throat become a comforting glow in her stomach.
He held his glass up to the light and inspected the gleaming amber liquid.
‘It’s what I’ve known since childhood. It’s what I love.
I don’t really have a yen for anything else.
’ He flicked her a glance. ‘As the Mum-Gran network travelled in both directions, I know things didn’t work out for you with your last boyfriend – Edoardo, was it?
I heard he came to Lombardy from Umbria to work in his uncle’s business in Olgiate Comasco, taking over when his uncle retired.
You never lived together and when Edoardo proposed, you turned him down.
’ He leant forward to lodge his whisky glass on the table, pulled off his tie and jacket, then opened his top shirt button before retrieving his glass.
She found herself having to remove her eyes from the skin at the base of his throat.
‘Edoardo’s proposal was festooned with strings.
While he took his uncle’s place at the head of the business, he wanted me to take on his aunt’s job – the paperwork – plainly not giving a fu .
. . a fig about Gran or the pensione.’ Because Gran hadn’t said anything stronger than the occasional ‘dammit’, Jade found it difficult to swear in English.
‘Or my life at all really,’ she added, treating Leo to a pointed, just-like-you stare, although Edoardo couldn’t be said to have left Jade.
More he was sent on his way. ‘He’s already engaged to someone more suitable.
I saw the engagement party photos on Insta.
He looks happy.’ Maybe to have found a fiancée shorter than he was.
He’d also grown a beard that was shot with grey and made him look older than his forty-two years.
‘Are you sad?’ His head tilted and he showed no sign of feeling the barb fired his way.
‘Not about Edoardo, though I think Gran was disappointed he was, as she called him, “a wee dud”, because she always wanted me to have more than her as my family.’ Like two sisters.
Jade emptied her glass, then poured more whisky over the remaining ice.
Leo’s glass was still half full, so she replaced the cap on the bottle.
‘Joey didn’t come to the funeral,’ he observed.
‘Nope.’ The ‘p’ sound popped more loudly than she’d intended. Or maybe the whisky had somehow set up an echo in her ears. ‘Mary, the notaio, informed him Gran had died. He said he was sorry.’
Leo nodded. There wasn’t much about her unsatisfactory history that he didn’t understand.
Maybe that was why she went on. ‘When I was a kid, I used to be fascinated by people’s attitudes when they spoke about him. Some said he was born under a wandering star. Others that he was an irresponsible bastardo who’d messed with Geneva’s marriage.’
Leo ran his fingertip around the rim of his glass, denim-blue eyes contemplative. ‘Did you ever try to trace her? Your mother?’
She snorted. ‘Why? She’s been able to find me any time in the past thirty-nine years.
She could have come to this very hotel and even if we’d moved to the pensione by then, Sheenagh would have told Gran that she’d been asking.
’ She spread her hands. ‘None of her family acknowledged me. Gran used to grumble about Geneva’s parents being big churchgoers, all the while pretending I didn’t exist. It’s odd to think I could have passed them in the street without knowing who they were.
They’re dead now, anyway. And Geneva’s brother had moved to Milan by the time Joey and Geneva disgraced themselves, so he never had to worry about the presence of an inconvenient niece.
It was Gran and Nonno who calmly took me in, giving me love and attention and all the things a kid needs.
’ Her eyes misted over and twin tears plopped onto her cheeks.
Wiping them away with the sleeve of the robe, she polished off half of her fresh whisky.
Silently, Leo rose and fetched more ice.
‘Top up?’ She waved the whisky bottle in the direction of his glass.
‘I’m fine.’ He sat down again. ‘I remember some kid from the year above ours telling you that his mother said your father was a shit.’